


time like your cheek has turned for me

by hihoplastic



Series: DW Tumblr Prompts/Reposts [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 04:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4906408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hihoplastic/pseuds/hihoplastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>river x doctor minifics (1000 words or less). title from iron & wine's "someday the waves"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. thumb down and starting to weep (12 + library of alexandria)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- for alyssa, who requested "library of alexandria"  
> \- title from iron & wine's "woman king"

**thumb down and starting to weep**

He should have seen it coming. 

All of time and space, every thread, fixed point, divergence, pulsing under his skin even as he sleeps. The threads he tore, yanked them from their stitch and knotted them back together because he couldn’t bear it anymore, couldn’t live with a ghost or an echo or a hollow promise. 

The timelines snarl around the Library and one heart drums _fixed point fixed point fixed point_ while the other hurls him toward anything to salve the pain. 

He wasn’t supposed to save her.

He knows that.

He does it anyway. 

–-

She comes back shelled. 

Her body is whole and her mind is sharp but she refuses to tell him how long. She isn’t used to solidity: bumps her hips on table edges and misjudges distances and burns her hands under the tap because she can’t tell the difference in temperatures. She’s cold, always cold, always wearing layer upon layer and black leather gloves that make her look sinister. Uninviting. 

Her voice is still soft and warm and full of love for him and all of his faults but he can’t reach her skin and her eyes keep drifting. She’s always looking over his shoulder when he speaks. She startles at everything. 

He finds her most often in his study, curled on the sofa in front of the fireplace, but she isn’t reading. Isn’t working. She sits and stares at the flames and sometimes he holds her and sometimes he doesn’t and sometimes she says, “Let’s go somewhere,” and they do. They run. 

He runs, from the look on her face. The feel of leather between his fingers when he grabs her hand. 

–-

She doesn’t stay with him long. 

He doesn’t know if it’s to hide the damage, or if she thinks there’s no damage to hide, but he follows her: 

She doesn’t go home, not to Luna or to Earth. She doesn’t look for work. She flits from planet to planet, desert to forest to new planets to apocalypses, always hot climates. Some so dry his lips crack within hours, some so humid he can barely breathe. 

When she finally acknowledges his presence, she insists she’s fine. Just cold. She blames it on readjustment. Corporeality. 

He tells her she’s in shock. 

She asks from what. 

He doesn’t tell her _living._

–-

She rips out the pages of her diary. 

He finds her on the floor of their bedroom, sitting in the pile with a hand over her mouth that shakes and her eyes are glassy and he doesn’t know what to say so he says nothing. Gathers the pages from around her, assembles them back in order. He’s read it all. There are no more spoilers. No more sneak peeks. He tucks them back within the cracked blue binding and smiles gently. 

“It’s okay,” he says, “We’ll make it good as new.”

–

When she leaves the second time, she covers her tracks. 

He arrives on planets she’s just vacated - ash and dust in her wake. She doesn’t harm anyone, anyone innocent, at least, but she’s reckless. He follows the stories: the warrior woman who took on an army, who fought off a god, who jumped off a cliff to the ocean below. 

–-

It isn’t lost on him that he’s the one to leave her messages. 

Love notes carved in stone and coordinates in ancient temples and Gallifreyan endearments on battlefields. 

She doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t expect her to. She’s running, not for her sake but for his: the destruction in her wake may not be reprehensible, but she’ll spare him every grief, even now. 

–-

It takes him too long to realize she’s fulfilling history. 

All the time in the world and only books for company and she knew: every war she was supposed to fight. She’d found herself in the pages of old tombs and picture books and plays and now she’s closing the loop. 

He catches up, catches her, tucks her safe in the TARDIS and pilots them into the vortex and tells her to stop. They have time. They have space. 

Time can be rewritten. 

–-

When she touches him, her fingers are ice against his shoulders, his bare chest. Her lips aren’t much warmer, and he rubs his palms over her back, her arms, everywhere he can reach. He wraps his body around her and ignores the tingle in his skin and concentrates on her: the beat of her hearts and her throaty gasps and her nails raking down his spine. He tangles them in heavy blankets and mouths at every exposed joint and kisses her nose and her lips and her eyelids and when she curls into him, breathing heavy and bones heavy she says she can’t remember anymore what’s her and what’s fiction. 

“This isn’t,” he says, his fingers tangling in her hair. “This is real, River.” 

–-

She sets the Library on fire. 

He should have seen it coming. Felt the timelines converge. 

Standing on a far hill he watches her as she watches the flames lick the stones and swallow the tomes. Columns fall into the sea. The wind blows the smoke over Alexandria. He can smell the parchment and ink and leather. 

“There were too many stories,” she says. “In the Library, there were too many–I don’t want to go back.” She looks up at him, her hand fumbling for his in the dark. “Time can be rewritten,” she echos. “I can’t–”

“Hush,” he says. His lips find her hair. “Hush, now.”


	2. ne me quitte pas, mon cher (12 + i've missed you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- for brooke, "i've missed you" + river/12  
> \- title from regina spektor's "don't leave me (ne me quitte pas)"

**ne me quitte pas, mon cher**

The Doctor glares at the crackle of electricity, the slight smoke that appears in the living room. She’s barely materialized before he tosses away the magazine he wasn’t reading, crosses the room and kisses her. She jumps, a breathy gasp escaping her lips before she recognizes the body against hers, his lips, his smell, and relaxes, dropping her bag to wind her arms around his neck. 

As soon as he was there, he’s gone, grabbing her heavy pack and lugging it toward the bedroom. 

“You’re late.”

“By less than a minute.”

“I don’t know that. Could have been hours. You and your crass form of time travel. Can’t even call it that.”

Smirking, she follows after him, amused as he struggles with the weight of her duffel. “Missed me, then?”

“Hardly.”

Yet she could taste the tea on his breath, the kind he only drinks when he’s anxious; he’s cooked in her kitchen in the last few hours, and she can tell he’s already gone through her house at least twice, fixing the picture frames she intentionally leaves crooked and picking up the empty tea cups she intentionally leaves out. 

It’s how she keeps score. 

“I was only gone for a week. It isn’t my fault you use that time to travel for months on end.”

Dumping the bag on her bed, he stalks towards her again, fingers pausing at the hem of her shirt. When she nods, he yanks it over her head, manhandling her out of her sweaty, dusty clothes and towards the shower. 

“I do not,” he grumbles, then flushes at the admission. 

River arches an eyebrow as he unzips her pants. “Oh? So you just sulk around here until I return?”

She fully expects him to deny it, to tell her about the adventures he’s had with Clara in the last however long he’s been gone. Instead, he glowers at her shoes.

“I don’t sulk.” He pauses. “Your house is a bloody mess. Someone has to clean it.”

When he stands, she pushes his jacket off his shoulder and pulls his shirt over his head. 

“I have a cleaning specialist.”

He throws her bra over his shoulder. “I fired her.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “She kept showing up.”

“To do her job?”

The Doctor grunts and rids himself of the rest of his clothes. “It was annoying.”

Under the spray, River smiles, water in her eyes. “You really did stay here the whole week.”

“Did not.”

She wings an eyebrow, her hands settling on his chest.

“I went to the store. Twice.”

River barely suppresses a grin. “What for?”

He busies himself with soaping her down, mumbling the answer under his breath. 

“What was that, sweetie?”

Glaring, her snaps, “I said I bought your bloody favorite tea and your bloody favorite foods and that bloody book you wanted from that bloody shop owner who smells like grease. And you don’t smell much better, by the way.”

River laughs, a bright sound that echoes in the acoustics of the shower and even though he’s trying to remain bitter, she can see the small smile in the corner of his lips. Curling her fingers in his hair, she pulls him down for a kiss.


	3. there's a time and place for one more sweet embrace (12 + returned from the dead kiss)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- for @donttakehertodarillium requested river/doctor + "returned from the dead kiss"  
> \- title from regina spektor's "how"

**there's a time and place for one more sweet embrace**

River sighs heavily, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. It’s a habit she developed in the library, dealing with children day in and day in and day and day and day… She sniffs, allowing her fingers to drum briefly against her thigh.

“Not exactly the welcome I’d planned on, sweetie,” she says, keeping hold of her patience, injecting just enough levity to make him scowl. 

Glaring at her from behind the time rotor, the Doctor points his screwdriver in her direction (again), and re-reads the information on the screen. “Bloody stupid—” He smacks the screen. “Why won’t you tell me—”

“The truth? I believe she is.”

Stalking around the console, he jabs a finger in her direction. “You’re dead.”

“Formerly.”

“ _Permanently._ ” 

“I see your optimism has gone the way of your face.” 

He’s across the room in two strides, his grip biting on her arm as he pushes her against the TARDIS doors. The handle digs into her back and his fingers will leave bruises but she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away. His gaze is dark and nearly unreadable, save for the tiny glimmers of hope and fear that he does his best to keep buried. She’s not sure anyone else would recognize them, etched so deeply in the lines around his mouth, his eyes, his forehead. He doesn’t believe, this Doctor - not in miracles, not anymore. 

“Who are you?” 

It hurts, the way it always hurt, but the recognition is there this time - the trust missing. 

“I’m your wife.”

“My wife is dead.” 

He flinches as he says it, as if he’s never said it before, not out loud. His body presses closer to hers, his free hand catching hers before she can reach for him. She forces a laugh.

“Ooh, you’ve gone all strict. Not that I mind.” 

For a moment, his expression doesn’t alter; then his lips curl and his nostrils flare as he remembers. 

“Who are you?”

River tries not to shift in the tight grip. “I’m your wife.”

“Prove it.”

“Try me.” 

“Alfava Metraxis.”

“Weeping Angels that looked like Aplans. Two heads. Everyone died, even Father Octavian, but not before he told you I was in prison. Mum had bruises from climbing out with her eyes closed. I told you about the Pandorica. You said it was a fairy tale.” 

“Galsec Seven.”

“The Everglades. And then an angry tribe of human colonists who thought I was a witch. And then alligators.”

“How–”

“Five of them.”

“July 8th, 150,023.”

River tilts her head. “Did you ever get that stain out of your favorite shirt?”

“Richard III.”

“I am not a lunatic. You’re biased, and Shakespeare was afraid of my hair.”

“Dusseldorf.”

“Cybermen.”

“Jessica.”

“My mother’s middle name.”

“Jenny.”

Her expression softens. “Your daughter.”

His eyes narrow. “Celery.”

“Fifth self.”

“Umbrella.”

“Seventh.”

“Time War.”

“Trick question.”

“Gallifrey.”

“Stands.”

He sucks in a sharp breath, and River smiles up at him as best she can.

“Just ask me, Doctor.” 

He swallows, his hands tightening on her arms. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” At his silence, River softens. “It’s not a dream. You won’t wake up at the magic word.” 

The Doctor startles, eyes still guarded, but the hope has grown and he looks so old, so vulnerable, grey haired and tired and so, so lost. She waits, letting him clench his jaw and flex his fingers against her skin and study her, looking for anything that doesn’t match his memory. 

“Fine,” he says finally. “Let’s get this over with.”

River smiles, arching up on her toes. She can tell by the expression on his face that some part of him still doesn’t believe; still thinks she’ll bluff. Still thinks the universe doesn’t owe him anything, that he doesn’t _deserve_ anything, not even this. Not even one small gift.

His name falls from her tongue to his ear and his body stiffens, hands desperate around her upper arms and she’s barely pulled back when they leave her skin and cup her cheeks and he’s kissing her so hard their teeth clash, but she’s free to wind her arms around his neck and pull him closer and it’s the warmest she’s been in centuries. His lips feel different and his hair is coarser and his body against hers isn’t as lithe but she doesn’t care, doesn’t care about anything except the way he isn’t breathing, too busy swallowing her whole. Her name comes out against her lips but he doesn’t pull away, kisses frantic across her skin and she runs her hands over his back and shoulders, his chest, over his cheeks and through his hair. 

He stops after a moment at her lips, hovering, his eyes squeezed shut and his forehead pressed to hers, his fingers digging into her jaw. 

“River.”

It’s half a question, and she forces him to look up, to meet her gaze, to see that she’s still there and she still wants him and she still loves him, every time.

“Now that’s more like it,” she murmurs, unable to stop touching him, arching closer. 

His lips quirk, and she brushes the stray tear from his cheek.


	4. your face has faded but lingers on (13 + you're the most beautiful thing i've ever seen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- for @kendricks-frappuccino, who requested "river/13 + you're the most beautiful thing i've ever seen"  
> \- title from iron & wine's "each coming night"

Well, she thinks, wind rushing in her ears, it will certainly be the shortest regeneration she’s ever had. Not terribly dignified. Bit embarrassing, really, after that grand speech to herself. At least her last (and first) words were good, even if there was no one around to—

She hits the ground, air pushed from her lungs and it hurts, her whole body seizing, pain in every nerve and she tries to breathe and gasp and—

She comes to shivering.

Spluttering, really—forcing water (water? how?) from her lungs on a wretched cough, but she’s alive, somehow. She can’t see straight, everything blurred and hazy, thoughts scattered as she tries to focus on inhaling and exhaling with any regularity.

“That’s it,” she hears, “Slowly.”

There’s a pressure at her back, helping her sit up, but she’s too weak, muscles trembling.

“It’s alright,” the voice murmurs, and its low and distant, muted beneath the thrumming in her ears. “You’re alright.”

She squeezes her eyes shut and heaves and tries to shake the voice from her head. It’s too soft, too familiar, and it hurts more than the burning in her throat, more than the regeneration energy snapping under her skin, more than the breathlessness. It hurts the way a good dream hurts when you wake, and she doesn’t want it. Not now, not when she’s so new, when her emotions are raw and her body on fire.

“Breathe, darling.”

Her cough turns to a sob and she turns her head away from the sound. It’s too cruel, too soon. Her hand curls into a fist against the cold floor.

“Please,” she manages. “Please, don’t.”

“Don’t what? Save you?” There’s a scoff, a gentle hand around her arm, grounding her. “I suppose I could pitch you back out of doors if you like.”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Don’t lie to me,” she says to herself. “Not again.”

It’s too much like last time, like haunted footsteps and her voice, always present, always tender, sometimes pleading:  _please see me._

She doesn’t want to see. Doesn’t want to open her eyes and see a ghost.

But River’s never had much patience for her melodrama, even when she was dead, and a firm hand settled on her cheek, coaxing her chin up.

“Look at me.”

It feels real, all of it — the voice now clear, the warmth at her back, the touch.

_Be kind,_  she thinks, and opens her eyes.

River smiles, and it’s blinding. “There you are. Hello, sweetie.”

Her hair is wet, bedraggled around her face, curls limp, makeup smeared, so unlike the pristine version of her wife she used to see, so long ago.

“River?”

River rolls her eyes, cards her fingers through the Doctor’s hair.

“Who else?”

She doesn’t dare blink, even when her eyes sting (chlorine?), reaches out a trembling hand and is met with a gentle touch, fingers interlaced, grounding her.

In the back of her mind, she hears the TARDIS hum soothingly, reassuringly,  _happily._

She closes her eyes and opens them.

River remains.

“How—?”

“Long story,” she says, smiling.

The Doctor pushes herself up on knees that ache.  A blanket slips from her shoulders.

“Are you real?”

“You tell me.”

Lips brush hers, familiar and warm.

It’s too chaste, too gentle, and she chases the touch, grounds herself in her fingers in River’s hair and her hand on River’s cheek and River’s soft hum and her lips and her tongue and the soft curves under her.

When she pulls back, breathless, River’s eyes are soft, a bit concerned, lips swollen, and paler than usual but everything.

The first face this face sees.

It’s perfect.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she says, and River laughs softly, curls brushing the Doctor’s hand as she shakes her head.

“Glad to see your habit of thinking out loud hasn’t changed.”

“No,” she murmurs, brushing her thumb over her wife’s cheek. “I meant to say that.”


	5. you pick a place that's where i'll be (12 + i can't stay away from you)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- for @stephanniesissues, who requested "river/12 + i can't stay away from you"  
> \- title from iron & wine's "someday the waves"

For one long, piercing moment, he thinks it didn’t work. He feels the regeneration energy under his skin, feels every cell in his body for, feels nothing. Everything is black and empty and cold, so cold, and he can’t feel his body, the ground, the air.

He opens his eyes and sees blue.

Blue, and the edges of green - leaves, he thinks - and a single, white cloud.

“Finally,” a voice says from somewhere to his left. “Took you long enough.”

It’s familiar, but not terribly so, and, if he’s not mistaken, cross.

Very, very cross.

Arching his neck, he sees the upside down figure of a woman standing over him, arms crossed, looking none too happy but faintly relieved.

“Where am I?”

“Where you intended to be, I hope,” she says curtly.

The Doctor sits up slowly, sees lush green and hears soft birdsong and her— “Anita.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Surprised you remember me.”

“I always remember the brave ones.”

She flushes, but her dour expression doesn’t change, and he clambers to his feet, brushing grass off his trousers.

“Are you going to make me guess?”

Anita huffs. “I should. You deserve a little punishment.”

The Doctor runs a hand through his hair. “How long—?”

“Too long,” she snaps, then takes pity on him. “She’s in the library.”

Some horror or dread must show on his face, because Anita smirks and shakes her head.

“The library here,” she says, inclining her head toward the mansion in the distance. “Come in, I’ll show you.”

The walk is long, despite his clipped pace, but it gives him time to catch his bearings - to feel the ground under his feet, the wind against his face. Everything feels real and whole and free of pain, but not the thrumming anxiety under his skin.

“Back of the house,” Anita says when they reach the door. “Third room on your right.  _Don’t_  screw this up.”

He nods, wonders when Anita became his wife’s protector, wonders how many years, decades, centuries—

He stalls that line of thought before it can take root.

The library is easy enough to find, a cavernous room with high shelves and a fireplace and quiet music coming from a speaker somewhere. Light streams in through the windows, makes it feel like home, but it’s nothing compared to how he feels when he sees her, curled up on a sofa with a heavy tomb in her lap.

He doesn’t know what to say. He feels too off kilter for their usual greetings, ones that are too light for the moment, for the enormity of what he’s done, finally, after all this time.

“If you’re looking for a doubles partner, it’s going to have to wait,” she says, eyes still glued to her book. “I’m halfway through the fall of Titus IV and I’m not in the mood to watch your vain attempts at impressing Miss Evangelista.”

He almost laughs.  “You play tennis now?”

_Terrible first words,_  he thinks, worse than any he’s had before.  River’s entire body stiffens, her eyes trapped on whatever word she’d last read, fingers curling into fists.

“If this is some kind of joke, so help me—”

“River.”

He doesn’t know when he moved, how he managed it, but he’s standing over her when she looks up, her eyes wide and wet, lips parted.  The book falls from her lap with a heavy thud, but she ignores it. She stares at him, hand reaching for him then falling away, and the guilt sits in his chest like a writhing thing, makes him feel sick.

He tries to smile, for her, but it comes out weak and lopsided. He doesn’t back away when she stands, so slowly, and it feels like so many mornings on Darillium, River in his shirt and bare feet, arching up on her toes to kiss him good morning, or good afternoon, or hello.

She stares, and he stares back, and really he should have expected it, but the ringing slap that echos in the room and spikes pain down his neck catches him off guard.

He grunts, turning his eyes back to glare at her as he rubs at his cheek, but it’s mitigated by the tears in her eyes and the way she swallows, her fingers flexing against her thigh.

“Just checking,” she says, though her voice is raspy, and he can’t help the quirk of his lips.

“Slapping me was your only option?”

She purses her lips. “No. But it is my preferred method.”

He sighs. “I suppose I deserved that.” He glances down, and notices her hands are shaking, trembling violently against her sides, and he reaches out before he can stop himself taking both in his own and holding them close.

“River.”

“You’re here?”

He nods, and kisses her knuckles.  “I’m here.”

“This isn’t a trick?”

“No trick.  I’m dead.  Well—changed. You know how it is.”

“And you—stopped to visit?”

The way her voice breaks, the disbelief, coils tightly in his chest.

“No, River,” he murmurs.  “I’m  _here._  For good.”

Her eyes widen, lips parting and he wants to kiss her, wants to hold her, wants to wrap her up and tell her over and over and over again how much he missed her, how much he loves her, how dear and precious and everything she is to him.

“But—why?”

It cuts through him, such a simple question, so much  _if you ever loved me_  and  _the Doctor does not, and has never, loved me_  etched in the words that he has to close his eyes for a moment, has to even his breathing, the rapid tattoo of his hearts.

“Guess I just can’t stay away from you,” he says, so softly, and hopes she knows, hopes she can see it burning in his eyes, the words he now has an eternity to say.  And he will. Not now, not when they’re both too frayed, River too unsure to properly believe him. But someday. Soon.

“Idiot,” she says, and then her arms are around his neck and her lips against his and he cradles her to him, warm and safe.

_Alive,_  he thinks, and it isn’t sad at all.


	6. i did i did i do (12 + why haven't you kissed me yet)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- for anon, who requested "river/12 + why haven't you kissed me yet"  
> \- title from annelyse gelman's "the pillowcase"

He makes it through dinner. Through drinks and dessert and a fond farewell to the Nardole-Ramone hybrid. He makes it into the TARDIS and into the vortex and follows her down the hall to their bedroom; makes it three steps inside the door before he blurts, **  
**

“Why haven’t you kiss me yet?”

River stills, back to him, hands poised to unpin the cape from her shoulders. It’s only a moment before she continues, drapes the black feathers over a chair.  “Why haven’t you kissed me?”

Her voice is low and even, unconcerned, if he didn’t know her better—but he does, can hear the forced ease, the attempt at playful that falls flat.

“You’re the initiator,” he says. “You kiss, I kiss back.”   _Kiss me,_ he thinks,  _please, just kiss me._  “That’s how it always worked before.”

River nods, but she still doesn’t turn, and he can’t see her face, hates it even more for the way her words, so quiet, almost resigned, fall between them.

“Yes. It did.”

_Idiot,_  he thinks, squeezing his eyes shut as another piece falls into place, another question from the past answered so simply, so painfully, he feels the space between his hearts begin to ache. He watches as she unpins her hair, shakes it out and he wants to touch her, so badly, his hands curling into fists at his sides, wants to slide his fingers between the strands, to brush his thumb along her ear in the way that always made her whimper.

But her shoulders are too stiff, movements slow and guarded, and it takes all his courage to lick his lips and ask, “Is that why—after Manhattan—you stopped touching me?”

River lets out a faint scoff.  “It might take me a while, but I do eventually get the hint.”

“It wasn’t a hint,” he says immediately, willing her to please, _please_  just look at him. “I was just—”  _Stupid. Selfish. Careless with her heart._  “I thought you were angry with me.”

“I was,” she says, but the blame is long gone. “That doesn’t mean I stopped wanting you.”

He thinks if it were possible, he genuinely might strangle his past self. “I’m sorry.”

She turns, finally, and offers him half a smile.  “Doesn’t matter now.”

Her actions suggest otherwise, the way she keeps her body closed off, the distance between them, and the Doctor sighs, running a hand through his hair in agitation. “It does, if you still believe I was intentionally pushing you away.”

River blinks at him, eyes wide, always braver than he could ever be. “Were you?”

He shakes his head firmly. “No. I wanted you to stay.”

“You had a funny way of showing it.”

He flinches, but agrees. “I know.”

He wants to apologize again, but it doesn’t seem to help. He can talk and talk and talk and River knows this, has seen him bend words to suit his own agenda often enough that he isn’t surprised she doesn’t fully trust them.  He isn’t sure he trusts himself.

Instead, he crosses the distance between them, carefully, slowly, until he’s close enough to see the way her chest rises and falls with her breath and read the haunted look in her eyes as clearly as words on a page. Without his permission, his hand reaches out, then stops, hovering over her cheek.

“Can I—”

Her eyes slip shut but she nods, and he finally, _finally,_ touches her, fingertips in her hair, palm curving over her cheek, and he feels his hearts skip beats for the way she leans into him, instinctively.

“I thought you knew,” he says after a moment. “How much I wanted you, all the time.”  Her eyes flutter open and her lips part, surprise she can’t conceal this close, and he brushes his thumb across her skin. “I was always just waiting for you to make the first move.”

River nods, a soft, cool hand curling over his wrist.  “After a while I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to.”

“I did,” he promises, and hopes she believes. “I do. But not this time.”

Before she can ask, he kisses her, cups both hands over her cheeks and tries to tell her with the gentle slant of his mouth and coaxing of his tongue that she is what he wants, what he’s always wanted, what he  _needs,_  in this moment and always.  Tries to tell her that it’s mutual, this thing between them that scares him so much, makes his bones ache with longing. _This time will be different,_  he tries to say.   _This time, I’ll meet you halfway.  This time I’ll love you better._

When her eyes close and her mouth parts under his, he knows she hears him.


	7. nothing to do but give to you (13 + please marry me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- for anon, who requested "river/13 + please marry me?"  
> \- title from elvis' "true love"

The Doctor spies the fold-up sign on the sidewalk and immediately stops, snatching River’s hand as she points at it with the other.  “Ooh, a chapel!”  She turns and grins. “Let’s get married.” **  
**

River rolls her eyes. “In case you’ve forgotten, sweetie, we’re already married. Have been for, oh, a few thousand years?”

The Doctor huffs, dragging her closer to the sign that points to a suspicious looking door tucked between a laundromat and a bail bonds firm. “Yes, but we’ve never been married in  _Vegas._ ”

“There’s a good reason for that,” she grumbles, but the Doctor is still smiling, alternating between giving her puppy eyes and trying to peer through the dark windows into the so-called chapel. “It’s…campy.”

The Doctor snorts.  “You love camp. You were practically born campy.”

River narrows her eyes, and the Doctor mumbles a quiet “oops” before leaning forward and kissing River on the nose.

“And lovely, of course. Campy and lovely.”

River sighs and tries to tug the Doctor past the door, but she holds fast, looking at River with with wide, pleading eyes.  

“I’ll buy you a dress?”

River folds her arms across her chest, unmoved. “White’s not really my color, sweetie.”

“I don’t know. Your ghost pulled it off fairly well.”

River purses her lips.  At least someone doesn’t mind joking about her temporary incorporeality. “There’s no accounting for taste after death.”

The Doctor positively beams at her. “Good think you’re no longer dead then, isn’t it?”

River rolls her eyes. “Yes, you’re very clever.  Only took you three thousand years to work it out.”

The Doctor nearly pouts. “Oi! I got there in the end,” she says, her smile returning, and god, River is helpless against it, against the warmth shining in her Doctor’s eyes.

“You always do,” she murmurs, and lets the Doctor take her hand again.

“So?”

“So what?”

“So, marry me!” She brings their hands up and tucks them under her chin, peering up at River through her lashes. “Please, River?”

River eyes her suspiciously. “Why?”

“Why not?” she shrugs. “Does there have to be a reason?”

“You always have a reason.”

The Doctor bats her eyelashes cheekily. “Maybe I want another honeymoon.”

“We can have one of those without getting married, my love,” River reminds her. “In fact, the last few weeks have been quite the honeymoon, wouldn’t you agree?”

The Doctor flushes, and at the same time nearly whines, “But it’s not the  _same._ Honeymoons are full of romance and—and—flowers?” she guesses, barrels on, “Not running from Sontarans and digging up bones, and it should certainly be better than going straight to prison after a wartime ceremony with a tosser who doesn’t even ask first.”

She says the last bit in nearly one breath, staring just to the side of River’s face, and River nearly melts. 

“I don’t know,” she says softly, “That sounds like the perfect honeymoon to me.”

The Doctor  _harumphs_ , but her eyes are grateful, touched, and she sniffs once before poking River in the arm. “Of course it does,” she mutters. “ _Camp_.”

River sighs, glancing at the door to the chapel again, and wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, darling, but I doubt a Vegas wedding is particularly romantic.”

The Doctor perks up at that.  “We’ll never know unless we try.”

River is used to the Doctor’s excitement, especially this go around. Used to the eager way she flings herself into danger, the permanent smile on her face, the easy laughter. She treasures it, adores it, and would do anything to keep her wife happy.

Even this.

“Fine,” she says, ignoring the tug on her hearts when the Doctor’s grin widens. “But if I see one Elvis impersonator, I’m leaving you at the altar.”

Grabbing her hand again, the Doctor kisses her firmly on the cheek.  “Deal.”


	8. as sure as tomorrow will come (13 + you make me so happy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- for anon, who requested "river/13 + you make me so happy"  
> \- title from iron & wine's "fever dream"

There’s something wrong. Has been since she came back, since the Doctor found her again, on Luna, packing up her house. She’s known, but hasn’t been able to bring herself to ask, to tear down River’s carefully constructed joy at being alive; her own, more earnest adulation at having her wife back, a second chance. **  
**

River still flirts and teases her and kisses her like she’s something precious. She still fights with her and ignores her and drives her mad. But there’s a melancholy to her that terrifies the Doctor, makes her think, but only in the dark, if maybe she came back wrong. If some piece of River is missing, something that can never come back.

She’s trying to be braver this go around, trying not to hide from the things that cause her pain, but it’s difficult. River pretends like nothing’s wrong and the Doctor is so used to letting her, it takes weeks for her to summon the courage.

It’s a painstaking process, trying to get River to open up—she tries to laugh it off, tries to distract the Doctor with kisses and a heady touch, tries to drag her out of the TARDIS and into chaos, but for once, the Doctor doesn’t let her. She waits, patient as she can, but it isn’t until she lets her own insecurity show that River relents, helpless against the Doctor’s broken voice, the nearly inaudible question,

“Why do you keep looking at me like you’re waiting for me to leave?”

River turns away, wraps her arms around herself in a gesture so fragile it makes the Doctor’s hearts crack.  “Because I am.”

“Why? Why would you—” Her voice stalls, dies out in her throat, and she feels raw, empty, hopeless.

River sighs, and when she looks back, her eyes are wet, her smile tremulous and broken. “I never realized it before, but in the Library—before I died—I trapped you.”

“I don’t understand.”

River almost laughs, but it sounds like static. “I told you your name. I told you about Darillium. I told you who I was to you and you never—” She looks down, and for the first time, the Doctor recognizes the expression on her face for what it is: shame. “You never had a choice. I was so terrified of losing you that I—I made you stay.”

The Doctor shakes her head, feels anger spike down her spine—anger at herself, at her past selves, at River, for being so frustratingly, beautifully oblivious.

“You really think I would have spent the last two thousand years with someone I didn’t want to be with? That I didn’t trust completely?”

“But that’s what I’m telling you—I  _made_  you trust me. I forced your hand and I—”

She cuts the words off with her mouth, swallows their sounds, can’t bear to hear it.  Her hands frame River’s face, thumbs over her cheeks as she pulls back, just enough to drop her forehead to River’s. “Don’t you dare,” she murmurs. “You told me what I needed to know and nothing more. Everything else was my—”

“Your what?”

The Doctor smiles.  “I was going to say my choice, but it wasn’t. I didn’t choose to love you, but I chose to stay.”

“Doctor—”

“You know better than anyone how time works, River,” she says softly.  “You know the way it weaves, the way it changes in a nanosecond, whole lives made and destroyed by the work of a single moment, every moment, over and over again, and in every single one I chose you. I will always choose you.”

River’s face crumples, her fists curling around the lapels of the Doctor’s coat.  “Why? We keep—we keep hurting each other, again and again, keep leaving and—”

Cupping the back of River’s head, the Doctor presses her lips to River’s forehead, breathes into her hair, holds her when she buries her face in the Doctor’s neck.  

“Because you’re wrong.”  Pushing her back far enough that she can look her in the eye, the Doctor holds her gaze and tucks a strand of hair behind River’s ear.  “You make me happy, River. More than I could ever imagine. You make me—”

She doesn’t get to finish.  River kisses her, tastes like salt, like time, like home.


End file.
